Breastfeeding moms don't get less sleep

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who breastfeed their newborns appear to sleep just as long - and as well - as women who rely on bottles or a combination of bottle and breast, a small study finds.

Contradicting the suspicion that breastfeeding moms get less sleep, the results represent "good information to be able to tell women, (that) 'not breastfeeding is not going to help you get better sleep,'" study author Dr. Hawley Montgomery-Downs of West Virginia University told Reuters Health. "And the benefits (of breastfeeding) for both mom and baby are tremendous."

Research has shown a protective effect of breastfeeding on a number of pediatric diseases, including eczema, middle-ear infections, lower respiratory tract infections like pneumonia, asthma, type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Recently, a study estimated the U.S. could save $13 billion per year, as well as prevent 911 annual deaths, if 90 percent of new mothers in the U.S. breastfed exclusively for six months, as is generally recommended.

Currently, just 70 percent of U.S. women breastfeed their babies at all and just 33 percent of them continue for a full 6 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many factors may account for low breastfeeding rates, but they may include exhausted mothers' fear of being even more exhausted.

There has been an "urban myth" that women who breastfeed get less sleep, Montgomery-Downs noted, which may cause some to hesitate to do so. Caring for a newborn is challenging enough, without being sleep-deprived, and some research has even suggested poor sleep after childbirth may increase the risk of postpartum depression.

Indeed, babies digest breast milk faster than formula, the researcher said, so breastfed babies may need to be fed more often in the middle of the night. Some research based on mothers' diaries has suggested babies who breastfeed sleep less and wake up more at night, but the findings have been inconsistent.

When Montgomery-Downs and her colleagues asked 80 new mothers to report how often they woke up and how rested they felt, and to wear sensors that measured how long and efficiently they slept, they found no significant differences between those who relied on breastfeeding, formula, or both. They report their findings in the journal Pediatrics.

This suggests that "there may be some kind of compensation" for breastfeeding mothers, Montgomery-Downs said in an interview.

For instance, babies who breastfeed may wake up more (and wake up their parents more), but those nighttime feedings may have less of an impact than if they were drinking formula, she suggested. In order to prepare a bottle, women often have to get up, turn on the lights, and move around quite a bit, all of which may make it harder for them to go back to sleep.

Alternatively, when breastfeeding, women may be awake for shorter intervals, and be less active, which makes it easier for them to go back to sleep. Women who breastfeed also have higher levels of the hormone prolactin, which facilitates sleep, Montgomery-Downs noted. And if the babies are sleeping next to the mothers, they may feed while the mother is sleeping, she added.

Furthermore, there has been only limited research into the effects of breastfeeding on sleep, and it's possible that babies who breastfeed don't actually wake more than others, Montgomery-Downs noted.

"Better sleep really is not a reason not to breastfeed," she concluded.